This invention relates to a surgical instrument for performing emergency tracheotomies.
A tracheotomy is an operation for the purpose of relieving an obstruction in the respiratory passage. The instrument provided by this invention is used to make an incision in the front of the neck and in the trachea in preparation for inserting a tracheotomy tube through the incision and into the trachea. The tracheotomy tube provides an emergency airway to the trachea for allowing the patient to breathe.
A number of surgical instruments for performing tracheotomies have been disclosed in the following patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Patentee ______________________________________ 300,285 Russell 2,991,787 Shelden et al 3,688,773 Weiss 3,759,263 Taylor 3,817,250 Weiss et al 3,886,946 Hyde ______________________________________
These instruments use a needle or a blade having a pointed end which is positioned over the patient's throat and pushed forward to puncture an incision through the tissues in the throat area and the trachea. Extreme care must be used to ensure that the incision into the trachea is made immediately and accurately, while ensuring that too much pressure is not applied which could result in the puncturing needle or blade passing through the opposite side of the trachea, for example. The puncture is made in a hollow area of the throat where it can be difficult to accurately limit the pressure applied when puncturing an opening in such a hollow area, especially when the depth of the puncture should not exceed about 1/2-inch.
The present invention provides a surgical instrument which does not puncture an opening, but rather makes a narrow, slit-type incision from a cutter blade which moves laterally while being pushed forward into the trachea. In this way, the incision can be made safer because it requires less forward pressure to make the incision than with a puncturing instrument. By making an incision with less pressure applied to the incision-making instrument, the physician or technician has better control over the depth of the incision, and hence the incision is more accurate. Moreover, the incision made by the instrument of this invention does not nearly cause the amount of tissue damage resulting from an incision made with a puncturing instrument.